15 Critical Daily Functions to be Successful in Your Shop | Pt 2

Today, we will be continuing our look at 15 critical daily functions to be successful in your shop. To read the first part of this article, which contains the first 5 daily functions, please click here.

6. REPAIR ORDER AUDITING

It is vital to audit your repair orders. Observations indicate that overall, the industry could convey more value on each repair order by improving the explanation with more details of procedures and services provided.

We have found that frequently, technician recommendations are not estimated, the customer is not contacted with recommendations that are found, and remaining recommendations may not be carried over to the final invoice. We suggest that all owners audit repair orders and final invoices daily for missed opportunities with a goal of improving sales and capturing more of the escaping opportunities.

Over the last several years our calculations have indicated that for every sales dollar captured without an inspection performed, seven dollars of sales opportunity escapes. In other words, if a repair facility has annual sales of $1.8 million, $12.6 million has escaped!

7. COMPLETED VEHICLES

One of the exercises we perform when onsite at a member shop as part of our Bottom-Line Impact Group® process is to bring two vehicles that have been completed and are awaiting customer pickup back into the shop for formal re-inspection per the shop inspection form and to review the repairs/service charged out on the invoice.

Thirty-four years of performing this exercise on the Group’s first visit to the member’s shop has revealed that when most of the vehicles were re-inspected, there were repairs and service that were overlooked. Often, the dollar amount of these services amounted to well over $1,000.

Many of our current clients randomly select one completed vehicle per day to road test and re-inspect. Performing this exercise on a daily basis ensures that all staff completes very thorough inspections and writes down their findings. This affords more opportunities for the shop, and provides better customer service.

8. FINANCIAL ANALYSIS

Every business should have a daily financial report card. In many businesses this is called a “daily operating control.” A daily operating control compares your current performance to your projected performance criteria. Areas that need daily monitoring include: total sales; sales by revenue category; total gross profit; total gross profit by revenue category; total operating expenses; labor inventory management, including total billed labor hours and total billed hours by technician; hours-per-repair order (HPRO); effective labor rate; checkbook balance; and aged accounts receivable totaled in each time category such as 0-30 days, 31-60 days, 61-90 days, and 91 days and over. Closely reviewing these financials against projections on a daily basis will enable you to make changes for improvements sooner than month’s end.

9. TELEPHONE CALLS

Every business should have a method of tracking the total number of daily inbound telephone calls received and they should be divided into the following categories: price shoppers, requests for appointments, status of the vehicle, complaints, and those requesting to speak directly with the owner. Each category is important and serves a specific purpose.

For instance, the total price shoppers would reflect the number of daily opportunities to convert these callers to appointments. Specific appointments will enable your staff to build an efficient production schedule. Calls for status of the vehicle indicate a need to improve the outbound calls by your sales staff to keep the customer updated. (The goal is to have very few to none of these types of calls.)

Finally, specific calls to the owner can be broken into smaller categories such as sales people, complaints, friends, business associates, etc. Again, tracking these on a daily basis into the categories previously listed will provide great insight to your business.

10. EMAIL

Carefully monitoring your shop email is extremely important. Make sure to have an email address for your service advisors (either individual or a shared email address will work), since this enables them to communicate better with your customers and suppliers. These emails should look professional – don’t use a free Gmail, Hotmail, Comcast, etc ending. It should be “serviceadvisorname@yourshopname.com.”

Check back with us next time for the rest of the list of 15 Critical Daily Functions to be Successful in Your Shop. And in the meantime, start implementing the first 10 functions!

Want help? Need advice? Have questions? Call RLO Training at 800-755-0988 and we will help you start on your road to success.